


slow it down, go easy on me

by queenjameskirk



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ben Is Dead and We Are Sad, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 21:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17875340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenjameskirk/pseuds/queenjameskirk
Summary: “Oh no,” Klaus moans, “No, no, not you,”“Klaus?” Ben asks, but Klaus already has his hands over his ears, eyes closed and his knees scrunched up to his chest.“Anybody but you,” he continues, shaking his head.





	slow it down, go easy on me

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to erin for beta-reading and also for being my headcanon partner through all this ridiculousness!

 

  
_if at some point we all succumb_  
_for goodness sake let us be young_  
_'cause time gets harder to outrun_  
_and i'm nobody, i'm not done_

_-wetsuit by the vaccines_

 

Ben dies at three thirty in the afternoon on a Wednesday. 

 

He reappears early Thursday morning, practically still Wednesday night, standing over Klaus’s bed. 

 

Klaus awakes with a start, a cold sweat on his skin and goosebumps prickling his arms. There’s a summer nighttime breeze blowing in through his open bedroom window, rustling the curtain and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He feels the coke slipping out of his system, leaving him jittery and in dire need of a joint or three, but he figures vicodin might quell the ache long enough for him to get another few hours of sleep in. 

 

He groans against the hangover and moves to roll over, to find his pants on the floor and dig some pills out of the pocket, but there’s someone in his room. 

 

“Jesus Christ!” he exclaims, bolting up, but the figure hold its hands out in surrender. 

 

It’s hazy, not quite corporeal, and the moonlight that spills through the window cuts straight through its form. The white light reflects off a ripped spandex uniform, turning the blood that covers the fabric into a glistening black, and wraps shadows around the ghost.  

 

“Where am I?” the figure asks and Klaus knows who it is, has known the whole time but won’t— no,  _ can’t—  _ accept it. Ben’s voice is soft, a little hoarse, but it’s him for sure and Klaus’s headache is suddenly so strong he can barely keep his head upright.

 

“Oh no,” Klaus moans, “No, no, not you,”

 

“Klaus?” Ben asks, but Klaus already has his hands over his ears, eyes closed and his knees scrunched up to his chest. 

 

“Anybody but you,” he continues, shaking his head. His heart is beating in his ears, loud enough to drown out the sound of his harsh breath but he can still feel his lungs expand every time they drag in air, burning hot in his chest. He can still hear Ben’s screams echoing, has been hearing them all night, and they grow to a crescendo over the rushing of Klaus’s blood in his ears. Tears threaten at the corners of his eye but don’t spill quite yet, the shock freezing him in place. 

 

“Klaus!” Ben yells. It isn’t muffled by the hands over Klaus’s ears because of course that isn’t how this works. Ben’s there in his head, and Klaus couldn’t tune him out if he tried. 

 

“Get out!” Klaus yells instead, opening his eyes and finally looking at his dead brother. It’s dark but Klaus’s eyes adjust as he’s met with the gruesome truth. Ben is truly mangled, his uniform in tatters and his fingertips dripping blood that disappears into thin air before it hits the floor. His eyes are shining with tears and his lower lip is quivering, a telltale sign he’s about to start crying that Klaus remembers from a childhood full of stealing his brothers’ toys. The thought of Ben crying, his tears disappearing into nothing like the blood that spills from his fucking ghost, is what bring Klaus back to himself.

 

“No,” he starts, reaching his hand out to Ben’s form, but his comforting touch passes right through. There’s nothing but a tingling feeling as his fingers float through Ben’s shoulder. “Don’t cry,” 

 

“What happened? Where am I?” Ben chokes out, and god Klaus forgot how truly pathetic the dead sound. It’s heartbreaking, their confusion and anger and sadness, and Klaus hates them. The dead have done nothing for him, in all his years of being forced to listen to their problems, and Klaus wishes he could just pop a pill and go back to sleep. Nightmare over. 

 

But Klaus’s pity wins out over his hatred, beats out the fear in his bones. It may be dark but the moon is bright and Klaus has a chance to maybe do something good for once in his life. He’s sober enough to give it a shot, at least. 

 

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Klaus soothes. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, then moves to sit on the edge of his bed, feet pressed into the hardwood floor. “Do you remember what happened?” 

 

Ben shakes his head, his hair wet against his scalp. It could be blood, Klaus supposes, but he remembers it raining during their fight, even though every memory becomes a bit more hazy and detached when he tries to recall. He thinks he may have disconnected from himself there for a moment, when Ben was bleeding out on the floor and Klaus could do nothing but watch. He wonders if the others felt it too or if it’s just another side effect of his fucked up psyche. 

 

There’s a red rivulet dripping down Ben’s temple, glistening as it tracks all the way down to his jaw. Klaus makes to brush it away, hand raised, and then remembers the phantom tingling.

 

“You got some, uh,” he says instead, gesturing towards the blood. Ben furrows his eyebrows and tilts his head just a bit to the side and Klaus could almost laugh at his puzzled expression. “You know what? Nevermind,”

 

“Where’s dad?” Ben asks then and Klaus stifles a scoff. The Monocle had officially fucked off as soon as they’d returned home, leaving his remaining children to grieve on their own. Klaus assumes he’s in his office, drafting diary pages about how disappointed he is in The Horror and how best to calm the media storm that awaits them. Klaus wonders when the funeral will be, if they’ll have it private or public and flashy. He wonders how mad dad would be if he wore a dress. 

 

“Do you remember the mission from today?” Klaus asks finally. Ben frowns, eyebrows pulling together, and then slowly nods. His eyes widen, biting his lip between his teeth, and then Klaus sees something shift in Ben’s expression. He somehow goes completely closed off and yet achingly vulnerable at the same time. His shoulders shift inwards, blocking out the world, but his face gives away the whole story. 

 

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Ben says. Klaus wonders when their life became so fucked up that he wants to laugh at his dead brother, long and hysterical. But Ben sounds pitiful, his voice soft and questioning, and Klaus can’t help it. Whether it’s out of shock or what, Klaus can’t stop himself from snorting. 

 

“Yeah, man,” he giggles, laughing louder when Ben furrows his eyebrows in confusion. He laughs when Ben pats his hands down over his ghostly body, over the bleeding wounds and his chest that will never draw in another breath, and suddenly the laughter turns to sobs. Big, wracking heaves that shake Klaus’s shoulders and scream out of his throat. 

 

“Dude,” Ben says, reaching forward, and Klaus feels the phantom tingles on his shoulder. It’s heavier than before, almost the memory of weight holding him down, and Klaus cries harder at the realization that his dead brother is trying to comfort him. 

 

“God this is so fucked up!” Klaus wails, rubbing at his eyes to get the tears out of them, “You look like Hamburger Helper and I’m the one having a breakdown!”

 

“Yeah, well, you always were a drama queen,” Ben says and then snorts to himself. His laugh has always been minimal, rarely there and always dry, but it’s music to Klaus. Banter has always been something he and Ben have excelled at and Klaus is proud to have the ability to make Ben laugh, if only for a moment. 

 

“Drop dead.” Klaus responds on instinct. It’s been a joke between them since they were kids and god it tastes like blood in his mouth now. He looks at Ben in shock, the tears still streaking down his cheeks but the laughter fallen away, and Ben looks just as surprised as he is. 

 

Klaus is just about to say something else, to probably end up sticking his foot in his mouth all over again, but a knock at the door stops him. The interruption is followed by the telltale sound of the door creaking open even though he didn’t say whoever it is could come in. The tragic reality of having six siblings is knowing privacy never lasts. 

 

“Klaus?” Vanya asks. She’s letting in the light from the hallway. Luther had tried to turn flip the switch off when they all stalked separately to bed but Klaus simply flicked it back on as Luther kept walking. His brother had turned, mouth open to probably say something undeniably stupid, but Allison stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and that was that. 

 

“Go away,” Klaus responds. His voice is thick, embarrassingly wavering, and Klaus would care but his back is toward the door and the only one who can see the tears tracking his cheeks is currently dead anyway. He figures he’s earned this at least, a silent breakdown with a ghost by his side. 

 

“Klaus, what happened?” Vanya whispers. Klaus can tell by the shuffling of her socked feet that she’s stepped further into his room. He can picture her there in the doorway, bangs covering her eyes and her fingers twisting together in the fabric of her night shirt. 

 

He wonders what dad told Vanya; if he gave her all the gory details. He doubts it, is sure the old man probably just coldly told her that her brother was dead and then sent her to bed right after. Vanya probably has no idea what really happened, will never know the sound of her brother’s final screams or the sight of all that blood on a cold tile floor.

 

Klaus isn’t sure if he pities her or envies her. 

 

No matter what, the pain is too fresh for him to handle her grief. The drugs are still there in his system, making his skin itch and the light from the hallway sound like nails on a chalkboard, and Klaus is fucking tired. 

 

“I heard you talking and thought it might be… I thought he might be here.”

 

She sniffs, chokes a little bit on a sob, and Klaus can’t take his eyes off Ben, who’s staring at Vanya over Klaus’s shoulder. He’s crying too, but it’s silent. Nothing but tears dripping down his cheeks. They’re gonna fall and disappear and god damn it, Klaus isn’t strong enough for this. There’s no version of him that has the tact to deal with this, no secret part inside of him with the empathy required to give Vanya what she’s going to ask for. 

 

That’s all they do, anyway, all anyone does. They take take take things from Klaus. They want him to be better and stronger and more committed to the team but when Klaus tries to tap into the parts of him that they ask him to, when he tries to connect with his  _ gift,  _ he always wakes up back in the mausoleum. The air grows dank and cold and the dead reach vengeful fingers to him and Father is just beyond the door listening to him scream. 

 

“Klaus, can you talk to him?” Vanya asks. Klaus covers his ears but he hears her clear as day anyway. “Tell him goodbye for me?” 

 

She hitches another breath and starts crying again, like they’re all fucking kids again, and Klaus can’t take it any longer. He’s pushed all this down for so long, locking the trauma and the fear of the dark deep down in a box inside him, but it’s all bubbling up to the surface with every sob Vanya cries. She’s letting in too much light and it makes looking at Ben almost impossible, the gore too much for Klaus to take. He feels the sickness building up in him, nausea from the drugs and the horror in front of him and worst of all the  _ guilt _ . 

 

Because in the end, if anyone deserves to be dead it’s him. 

 

“Go away, Vanya,” he whispers. He sniffs once, coughing the tears away, and Vanya takes another breath to beg again, and Klaus has to cut her off before she can. He can’t take this; can’t hear any more.

 

“Go away!” he yells, loud enough that he knows everyone in the hall has to have heard them. Luckily for Vanya, she’s in good company. No one in this fucking family has ever cared for either of them, certainly not enough to investigate a disagreement. Klaus finally stands, spinning to face his sister, not bothering to wipe the tear tracks from his cheeks. Her mouth is open, eyes glassy, and her arms are wrapped around her middle. Klaus wants to say something, but the damage has already been dealt. Vanya shakes her head, bottom lip quivering, and Klaus sees something steel in her. 

 

Her shoulders bend back, straight, and there’s a moment where the moonlight reflects off her wet eyes and they shine pure white, pure but deadly. She sounds like the teapot whistling and soft violin music at the same time, the pressure building towards a crescendo. Klaus wonders if one day she’s going to boil over and scorch them all. 

 

“He was my brother too,” Vanya says. She looks at her brother one long moment, rock steady, and then she turns on her heel, slamming the door behind her as she goes. 

 

“Klaus,” Ben starts but Klaus doesn’t want to hear it. The dead talk too fucking much and Klaus wants to go back to bed. The good moment they had before has officially been shattered and Klaus knows there’s no salvaging it. Nothing else to do but patter on, then. 

 

“Come on,” Klaus says. There’s something on the tip of his tongue, but Klaus has never been the sorry type. He’s an unapologetic bastard, fully aware of being an insufferable prick, and if he’s going to stay on his feet he can’t change that now. “It’s not like you can get blood on the sheets anyway,”

 

Ben hesitates, looking down at his own form and then back up to Klaus’s face. Klaus tries to seem as inviting as he can, and scoots over so Ben can have the side of the bed closest to the window. They’ve shared beds, all of them, many times in the past. Klaus remembers crawling into Allison’s bed more than once, and even recalls an evening when Diego had shouldered Klaus aside to split the comforter equally. It isn’t a big deal, Klaus knows. 

 

There’s more than one stubborn bastard in this family though and Ben shakes his head. 

 

Klaus scoffs then, tries to summon the part of him that doesn’t care about this sort of thing, and falls back into bed. The mattress bounces as his weight hits it and he pulls his feet up off the floor to curl into the fetal position. 

 

“Just gonna hover over me creepily all night then? Fine, have it your way,” Klaus bites. He wiggles over, leaning over the edge of the bed, and finally gets a hand on his discarded pants. The pill bottle rattles as he turns it over, dumping out a dose big enough to really knock him the fuck out, and Klaus swallows them down dry. The pillow feels soft as a feather as he lays his head back down on it, sinking into the blankets. 

 

Klaus tilts his head and looks at Ben. His brother is staring right back at him, hands clenched into fists at his side but his face passive. He always was the most tempered of them all, the calm before their storm, and Klaus watches as his brother huffs and rolls his eyes. He doesn’t give in though, makes no move to join Klaus in bed. Instead Ben turns his back and stares out the window. It’s clearly a dismissal, him denying the little affection Klaus is offering, and Klaus harrumphs and exaggeratedly pulls the blankets up to his chin and closes his eyes. 

 

He hears the sway of the curtain in the breeze, pacing footsteps somewhere in the house, and then Ben sighs almost silently. Klaus doesn’t open his eyes, tries to even out his breath and feign sleep as much as possible in the hopes Ben will get over this stupid bravery act and just join him already, but the breeze whispers as Ben’s ghost moves gently away from the bed. 

 

Klaus feels a tingle on the palm of his left hand, a whisper of touch right along the letters of  _ Goodbye _ , and then Ben is gone. 

 

Klaus is alone in the dark. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> wowee this fandom rly came out of nowhere with an atomic flying elbow and sucked me the FUCK IN!!! please bear with me during these trying times as i try to stop myself from writing 50,000 words of these idiot siblings failing at life! 
> 
> as always, im down to receive prompts and headcanons @cryingbilldenbrough on tumblr! thanks for reading!
> 
> title is from wetsuit by the vaccines (listen to it so u cry)


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